The year has gotten off to a tricky start for Blake Lively, who is currently embroiled in a legal battle with her It Ends With Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni. Days before Christmas, Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni accusing him of sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against her. Baldoni’s legal team called the allegations ‘categorically false’ and he filed his own lawsuit, against The New York Times, which first reported Lively’s legal complaint, accusing the publication of unfairly damaging his reputation and ignoring evidence which contradicted Lively’s claims.

The New York Times plan to vigorously defend the lawsuit, saying ‘our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article. To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and their representatives have not pointed to a single error.’

The competing lawsuits paint detailed pictures of what happened behind the camera during filming of It Ends With Us. Lively’s complaint contains a number of alleged incidents in which Baldoni and lead producer, Jamey Heath, allegedly violated physical boundaries and made inappropriate sexual comments to Lively during the first part shooting in spring 2023. She claims that she complained at the time and the studio arranged a meeting to introduce safeguards on set, after which Baldoni and Heath agreed to Lively’s terms in order to continue filming – and agreed not to retaliate against her. Her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, began accompanying his wife on set afterwards.

In Baldoni’s suit, he claims no such terms were agreed to – that no document was ever produced from the meeting and that the list of supposed ‘terms’ The New York Times printed was misleading. They maintain they were responsible in the reporting. Heath also claims that the naked video of his wife, that he is accused of showing Lively in her suit, was of a home birth that had ‘no sexual overtone’.

In text messages published by The New York Times, which it says were obtained by legal subpoena, Baldoni can be seen communicating with a crisis PR team he hired in response to shape the public narrative about him and Lively. ‘He wants to feel like she can be buried,’ a publicist working with Baldoni wrote to the crisis management expert, Melissa Nathan – who has previously worked with Johnny Depp and Drake. Baldoni claims the texts published by The NY Times were ‘cherry-picked’ and some altered. They say all texts were quoted accurately.

The online discourse during the promotional tour for It Ends With Us saw Baldoni branded as a feminist ‘ally’, while Lively was accused of being a bully and difficult to work with. Following interviews in which Lively focused on the uplifting aspects of the film (which is about domestic violence), she was dubbed ‘tone deaf’. Lively’s lawsuit alleges this messaging was part of an approved marketing plan by Sony, who instructed the cast to ‘focus on [the protagonist’s] strength and resilience as opposed to describing the film as a story about domestic violence.’ Texts with Baldoni’s team show them veering off-script to position him as an advocate against domestic violence, focusing on the serious tone of the film instead.

Now, the public reaction is more divided than ever. Some refuse to accept Lively may have been subject to a negative PR campaign. Others have revised their opinions and rail against how sophisticated online smear campaigns have become, with planted stories, amplification of negative social media threads and the use of bot accounts to create an echo chamber of negative opinion.

Comparisons have been drawn to how Amber Heard’s reputation was impacted online during her highly publicised defamation trial in 2022, brought by ex-husband Johnny Depp – after which Bot Sentinel, a company that investigates disinformation campaigns and online harassment, said that bot accounts were used to manipulate public opinion about Heard. It was not proven that Depp was involved in any creation of the bot accounts, and he vehemently denies orchestrating a smear campaign.

In Hollywood, many celebrities have publicly commented on Blake’s lawsuit, offering their support. Coleen Hoover, the author of It Ends With Us, posted a link to the New York Times article with the caption ‘Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change, never wilt.’ Her co-stars on The Sisterhood of The Travelling Pants, America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, and Alexis Bledel have also published a statement of support.

Baldoni has received support from right-wing political commentator Candace Owens, and his lawsuit claims that a producer on the film offered their support behind the scenes, after a meeting where Reynolds allegedly berated him for ‘fat-shaming’ Lively. According to the lawsuit, the producer said that ‘in his 40-year career he had never seen anyone speak to someone like that in a meeting and another Sony representative mentioned that she would often think of that meeting and her one regret is that she didn’t stop Reynolds’ berating of Baldoni.

Sony Pictures have stated the following: ‘We have previously expressed our support for Blake in connection with her work on and for the film. We fully and firmly reiterate that support today. Further, we strongly condemn any reputational attacks on her. Any such attacks have no place in our business or in a civil society.’

Baldoni’s lawsuit says, ‘The Times story relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives.’ The New York Times denies any allegations of irresponsible or misleading reporting.

How is Lively coping now? ‘Blake has every faith in her legal team and there’s not a doubt in her mind that she’ll prevail,’ an insider tells Grazia. ‘She and Ryan were methodical in their research and held many hours of meetings before electing to file a suit. The countersuit news doesn’t surprise them in the least. They knew from the get-go that Baldoni’s team is very rough and ready as far as digging up then throwing as much dirt as they can at her. They’ll be fighting fire with fire and calling out dirty tricks. She doesn’t want to get ahead of herself, since both she and Ryan are aware that the court of public opinion can change on a dime.’

Despite the dark shift from their usual happy-go-lucky public image, all things considered Lively and Reynolds are optimistic about their chances in the legal fight while Baldoni maintains resolute that he’ll fight any accusations of misconduct. ‘Blake’s had so much support from within Hollywood applauding her for taking this stand,’ the insider continues. ‘Ryan couldn’t be prouder of her. He’s all about family first and right now the focus is taking care of each other. They’re united, and it’s fair to say it’s brought them even closer together.’